By night’s end, Nyrius Moore-Smith had contributed two highlight-reel sequences from which to choose.
The Whiteland sophomore struggled to pick a favorite.
Moore-Smith’s two monster plays in the fourth quarter — one on each side of the ball — broke open what had been a one-score game as the second-ranked Warriors defeated Plainfield, 49-14, in a Class 5A regional.
“Nyrius played incredibly well tonight,” said Whiteland coach Darrin Fisher, whose 11-1 squad plays at Castle (8-4) on Friday in the southern semistate. “He made the plays that we needed to make tonight.”
The Quakers had closed to within 21-14 late in the third quarter when the Warriors, looking to regain the lost momentum, put together a six-play, 76-yard drive capped by Moore-Smith’s 33-yard touchdown run on an inside handoff.
Only three plays into the ensuing offensive series, Moore-Smith intercepted Plainfield junior quarterback Hunter Newell and bolted 31 yards to paydirt to basically seal the outcome.
Sixty-four seconds of scoreboard clock separated Moore-Smith’s heroics.
In all, the Warriors scored four touchdowns in the fourth period, the others coming on sophomore Slate Valentine’s 6-yard run and senior Jakarrey Oliver plowing in from 6 yards late in the fourth.
“You know, we’ve sat in this place many times, and we’ve kind of been the team that wanted to win,” Fisher said. “This time I think we were the team that had the will to win.”
Friday night’s regional title is the second in Whiteland history, joining the 1999 Warriors that competed in Class 3A.
Fisher’s team jumped to a three-touchdown lead in the opening half, relinquished a short Quakers scoring drive late in the second period and settled in with a 21-7 halftime lead.
Whiteland’s first trip to the end zone was set up by a 23-yard Plainfield punt that placed the football deep in Quakers territory.
On first down, senior quarterback Kevin Denham tossed a perfect 27-yard touchdown pass to junior Gunnar Hicks for a 6-0 advantage with 2:19 remaining in the first quarter.
The Warriors’ next offensive possession lasted all of two plays. Senior sweeper Jonathan Crowley took a pitch from Denham, found real estate and sprinted down the sideline in front of the Whiteland sideline for a 56-yard score 10 seconds into the second stanza.
Denham’s 7-yard run up the middle at 7:23 made it 21-0.
Plainfield got on the board a little more than a minute later after junior quarterback Hunter Newell hit 6-foot-4 junior receiver Isaiah Miller in the back corner of the end zone on a fade pattern.
Maalik Perkins, a sophomore defensive back for Whiteland, intercepted a pass, recovered a fumble and darned near picked off another Newell aerial in the first half alone.
Plainfield senior Noah Hessong’s 33-yard TD run after taking a direct snap made it a seven-point contest at 2:09 of the third quarter.
“We were thinking, ‘We’ve got to put this in right now,’” senior offensive lineman Will Hagan said. “We saw that score and something clicked. We had to start imposing our will and we had to do it now.
“This is indescribable. I feel great. Absolutely great.”
The Warriors won the regular-season meeting against Plainfield, a Mid-State Conference rival since 1973, scoring a 45-14 road triumph in Week 8.
Friday night contest was the first postseason matchup between the two schools, but Whiteland has now won 12 of the last 13 games against the Quakers dating back to the 2011 season.
